Can Brad Pitt Sue Over Angelina Jolie Engagement Ring Knockoffs?

Is Brad Pitt going to lord over this ring?

Real-life people are walking around with mockingjay pins, getting married in Bella Swan's wedding dress and buying Kate Middleton sapphire knockoffs—so it's pretty inevitable that there's going to be demand for copies of the engagement ring the groom-to-be designed for Angelina Jolie.

But can regular civilians just take a picture of the reportedly 16-carat bauble to their jewelers and say, "Give me this"? Or can manufacturers start cranking out cubic zirconia replicas for shopping malls?

Maybe not, depending on just how one-of-a-kind Pitt intended the ring to be!

"I don't know why he would want to go out and stop people from doing this, but assuming he wanted to, there's probably enough there to pursue," attorney Lincoln Bandlow, an expert in media and intellectual property litigation, tells E! News.

First off, one of the factors that would be considered before legal protection is granted is just how creative the design is.

"The design of a ring, as long as there's sufficient creativity, which is a minimal requirement under copyright law—he could put copyright protection into the design," Bandlow says. "There's not a tremendous level of originality required to have copyright protection."

Perhaps Pitt would take offense to that, considering a rep for jeweler Robert Procop said it took a year to get those emerald-cut diamonds just so, but it's good news if he wants to legally copyright the design.

Or maybe he already did!

"You get a copyright from the moment you create something," Bandlow explains. "It doesn't matter when the photos of the ring are published—he still has the copyright. He has a certain amount of time to register it if he wants to pursue infringement actions."

In this particular case, he adds, "I think someone would have to do an absolute exact copy. If there are any variations, there's not enough for infringement. When you have something of this minimal level of creativity, you need verbatim infringement. I don't think it's worth his while—I think he should take it as a compliment."

That's sounds a lot more likely than a lawsuit called "Pitt vs. Engaged Couple Who Liked Angie's Ring," so we'll hope for the best!